Our people are too closely intertwined for one to think that it can survive the fate of the other. …We wish to emphasize that the enforcement of law and order, and ensuring the safety and security of all the people, including the Muslim people, is primarily the responsibility of the State. Recent events have shown that the State has not discharged this responsibility in a manner beyond reproach.
Posts Categorized: Politics
The China Card
Many among the Eelam Tamils continue to fall for the “China card” claims of Sri Lanka. These claims serve, however, as a smokescreen for the realpolitik of the region vis-a-vis Sri Lanka. A critical analysis of this is helpful for Eelam Tamils to develop a more nuanced approach. China is of no help to Sri… Read more »
Find and Prosecute Those Responsible for the Massacre of 17 ACF Aid Workers
“It’s great that the international community got together to pass this resolution, but it’s really not enough because the terms of the resolution are not strong enough and it doesn’t force Sri Lanka to do something concrete,” said Chetcuti.
“What we are calling for is an international, credible investigation into war crimes. Asking Sri Lanka to do its own inquiry is ironic as its own army is accused of being behind some of these human rights violations.”
TNA Statement on Attack on ‘Uthayan’
These attacks on the democratic expression of Tamils in the North and East are clearly carried out with the active support, sanction and collusion of the Sri Lankan government. They are a vain and counterproductive attempt to suppress and persecute Tamils for their political aspirations..
We reiterate that to prevent a non-recurrence of the past, Sri Lanka must embark on a meaningful process of reconciliation based on ensuring truth, justice and reparations for victims of violent crimes committed by all parties..
Tamil Nadu Assembly Passes Resolution on Sri Lanka
The Tamil Nadu Assembly has adopted a resolution asking the Centre to stop treating Sri Lanka as a friendly country. It also calls for a referendum on a separate Eelam among Tamils in Sri Lanka and Lankan Tamils abroad. The Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution urging the Centre to slap economic embargo on Colombo till the “suppression” of Tamils was stopped and those responsible for “genocide and war crimes” faced an international probe.
Geneva Resolution: Not A Victory For Tamils, But A Defeat For Sri Lanka
Geneva Resolution: Not a Victory for Tamils, but a Defeat for Sri Lanka PM – TGTE – Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran The resolution proposed by America at the Human Rights Council related to Sri Lanka was passed by a majority of 13 votes. Out of the Human Rights Council comprising of 47 member states, 26 voted for the resolution, 13 against… Read more »
TNA Actions
As Sri Lanka approaches the three-year mark since the end of the war, which lasted almost three decades, and though nearly six decades have lapsed since the commencement of exclusionary policies targetting the Tamil people, various pledges made by the Government of Sri Lanka with regard to human rights, accountability and evolving a political settlement have not been fulfilled. The post-independence history of Sri Lanka contains stark reminders of the disturbing ramifications of broken promises and recurring violence.
Shri Yashwant Sinha’s Lok Sabha Speech on the Plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka
Shri Yashwant Sinha is a former Indian Foreign Minister in BJP Prime Minister Vajpayee’s cabinet from 1998-2002.
Amnesty: Sri Lanka’s UPR Review
On 15 March, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the Working Group report of Sri Lanka’s second Universal Periodic Review. Amnesty International delegates attended the session with Dr Manoharan, father of Ragihar Manoharan, one of five young men killed by Sri Lankan security forces in 2006. Dr Manoharan delivered a powerful statement on Sri Lanka’s… Read more »
The Political Economy of Prejudice
The post-war context in Sri Lanka offers significant scope for potential gains and conflicts over re-alignments of networks of patronage and clientelist redistribution, which along with ethno-religious relations was in many ways over-determined by the war. And the dominant players in this competition will only be too happy to align themselves with the so-called moral and spiritual regeneration of the body politic i.e. ethno-religious nationalism and extremism, if it will give them an edge in cementing their socio-political bases (perhaps better seen as multi-class factions?), economic privileges and crucially, reconfiguring the social and eventually even the socio-political and legal substance of citizenship itself.
Buddhists Targeting Sri Lanka’s Muslims
The Hardline Buddhists Targeting Sri Lanka’s Muslims Hardline monks and Buddhist groups are trying to outlaw halal certification After a series of attacks on mosques, wild rumours about animal slaughter and an attempt to outlaw the halal system of classification, the BBC’s Charles Haviland investigates how Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority is being targeted by hardline… Read more »
India’s ‘Rotten Diplomacy’
Both the Sinhalese and the Tamils now consider the various political parties of Tamil Nadu to be goading Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife from a safe distance so that they may milk it for electoral capital; this, too, is ineluctable…
It might be possible to argue – although this isn’t the place for it – that India’s foreign policy toward Sri Lanka has been the most disastrous such sustained policy it has ever run. Admittedly, these were, and are, deep and complicated waters. But India repeatedly made the cynical mistake of presuming that it could have it all. It resembled the gambler who backs every single horse in the race, and while that may minimize harm at the Kentucky Derby, it doesn’t quite work the same way in geopolitics.
A Lanka Lost?
Delhi now sees the sweet talk for what it is — classic Rajapakse doublespeak. It’s the method he employed to use India’s help to destroy the Tigers, knowing that once he had the LTTE out of the way, India would have no card left to play, no leverage to push for the 13th Amendment and the rehabilitation of the moderate Tamils, whom India want back in the political mainstream.
Sri Lanka Accused of Ongoing Torture
He said he had his toenails extracted and was then electrocuted, rendering him unconscious for three days. Now convicted, he has been sent to prison in the central city of Kandy, far from his home in the north. He has barely been permitted contact with his wife or son, who was born just months after his arrest.
The report also criticises a government rehabilitation programme for former Tamil Tiger soldiers that, it says, is also blighted by violence and, despite officially being classed as voluntary, is frequently used as a tool to prolong detention without trial.
CPA – Commentary on Land Circular 2013/01
Commentary on Accelerated Programme on Solving Post Conflict Land Issues in the Northern and Eastern Provinces In January 2013 the Government issued a new circular titled Accelerated Programme on Solving Post Conflict State Lands Issues in the Northern and Eastern Provinces- Land Circular 2013/01 (herein referred to as the Circular), which is the most recent… Read more »
Militarization & Reconciliation
Is it possible to secure the dignity, rights and well-being of a conflict-affected population by incorporating them into a military juggernaut that has quickly grown to dominate all spheres of life?
For Sri Lanka, More Empty Words
The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa greeted last year’s vote with complaints that it was being persecuted by the international community — and used that as a pretext to obstruct even more thoroughly the work of journalists, lawyers and activists. As Mohan Peiris, a former attorney general who is now Sri Lanka’s chief justice,said last March: “It won’t change anything. We will just forge ahead as planned.”
In May 2009, the Tamil Tigers, a merciless guerrilla group, lost the fight to carve out a separate state for the island’s Tamil minority. The war ended in a blaze of blood, with roughly 40,000 Tamil civilians killed, according to a United Nations estimate.
Four years later, the government has not investigated numerous charges that the army committed atrocities during the waning years of the conflict. Straining the fragile peace yet more, Tamils in the country’s north and east continue to live under the close watch of the Sri Lankan military.
UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka
Introduction to Voting on Resolution by the US US Introduction to Voting on Resolution on Sri Lanka March 2013 [PDF] Vote Count on Resolution Revised – Gabon voted YES late Voting on Sri Lanka Resolution at UNHRC March 2013 [PDF] For = 26 Abstain = 8 Against = 13 Tamil version of resolution 22/1 [PDF] Co-sponsors of the… Read more »
Sri Lanka ‘War’ a Genocide
Why Tamil Nadu is Right to Call Sri Lanka ‘War’ a Genocide A part of the national debate on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue in the wake of the second US resolution at the UNHRC in another two days is increasingly disturbing because it’s not only dismissive of the tenets of human rights, but is… Read more »
Casualties & Nepotism Graphics